Appearance, Beauty and Success

A key motive to lose weight is to improve physical appearance. The weight loss industry is directed at women who are moderately overweight (within 80 pounds of their ideal body weight). Weight loss ads show before and after pictures of women who have improved their appearance by losing weight. While looking good and feeling good are strongly connected, there are some deep misunderstandings that often confuse women who want to look better, but at the same time seek to be accepted for who they are at any weight.

There is a struggle in modern societies between the concepts of equality and fair play and the innate tendency to prefer beautiful, healthy, and physically fit individuals. While the advantage of being attractive and fit should be obvious, women in particular complain that they are unfairly compared with models and movie stars. A popular but wrong nurture assumption claims that the preference for the young and beautiful is a construct of society, created by advertising, magazines and movies. This preference is natural and ancient.

Overweight people complain that they suffer from discrimination and sometimes humiliation. The sad fact for overweight people is that there is an inborn judgment that transcends culture and cannot be easily erased. The evaluation of appearance and the judgment that someone is attractive and healthy has an innate basis, modified by learning and experience, but not caused by learning and experience. The elemental features of beauty are the attributes of young, healthy, strong and fertile humans. Smooth, blemish-free skin; symmetrical bodies and faces and good proportions suggest good genes, physical competence and child bearing capacity.

All humans are expert critics of others, but poor evaluators of their own appearance and behavior. Part of the overweight solution is to become realistic about how you are perceived by others. Humans prefer to hire, associate with and mate with the most beautiful people they can find. Good-looking people are always considered to be more intelligent and more capable than less-attractive peers.  Teachers prefer normal-weight, attractive children, offer them higher marks and are more optimistic about their future.

Attractive, normal weight people do better in business and most profession, earning higher incomes and achieve higher prestige. For jobs that require public presence, a "good appearance” is more important than education or sociability. Attractive people are less likely to be suspects in criminal investigations and. are treated more leniently by judges and juries.

Tovee et al   found that a woman is perceived by both males and females to be more attractive if her weight looks right for her height. Two factors were considered; the Body Mass Index  (in kilograms per meter squared) and the ratio of waist to hip. A BMI within the normal range was the strongest determinant of attractiveness. This finding connects the innate notions of attractiveness to health. The BMI is an indirect measure of present and future health and of reproductive potential.

Much human activity is generated by the interest in appearance and in every society, elaborate efforts are made to modify and improve appearance with clothing and cosmetics. This was not invented in the 20th century; movies and magazines did not invent this activity, they simply manifest a deep innate tendency. The most recent addition to this basic human activity is plastic surgery. Apparently, there is no end in sight for the plastic surgeons who command handsome sums for their work. In a US survey, more almost half of women were dissatisfied with their appearance and would go to a plastic surgeon if they could afford it.

Liposuction can remove fat in minutes that may take months to burn off with exercise. The fat cells removed will not be replaced.  If you continue to eat too much and exercise too little, other fat cells can grow larger, however, and fill in the void left by liposuction.  You should not think of liposuction as a weight loss strategy.  It is a sculpting technique that works best if a small amount of fat needs to be removed to improve the shape of the lower abdomen, breasts, buttocks and thighs.

Weight and disease management with the Alpha Nutrition Program. You can start by  studying our books or ordering a Rescue Starter Pack that includes two books, the Alpha Nutrition Program plus Eating and Weight Management,  plus one 500 Gram jar of Alpha ENF

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Eating and Weight Management

Alpha Nutrition Program

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